puzzle BONUS

Saturday was a fantastic day.

After a long struggle where we have been without a car for almost a year, my immediate family has managed to acquire two little cars. Financing them was a struggle but we eventually got it right, thanks to my dear wife.

My second daughter was offered a job and they offered to train her to become an advocate. She accepted but it was before she was able to buy her own car. So we decided to buy two little cars and she can use one until she can get something for herself. So we got one two weekends ago and the second one on this past weekend. Needless to say it is a special feeling to have a car once again.

(my lovely new chariot - long may it go!)

Yet as special as that feeling was, it did not compare to another fantastic surprise. Please accept that I am not normal; I do. This past week or so I completed the other half of the nine-thousand-piece puzzle on half of my table tennis board. You should know this as I have mentioned building the puzzle in previous articles. But as I was completing the puzzle against tremendous odds (an arrogant cat who KNOWS that I am there for his convenience and pleasure, would come and plop himself down in the unbuilt section and expect to be stroked by me, his slave), I came to the realisation that there were pieces missing, quite a few. My enthusiasm immediately waned and I dragged out completing this project.
Television in South Africa is dreadful, it is dominated by American programs and local yokel content. It drives me nuts and my unwanted verbal observations are even less wanted by my family. It is to the relief of both parties when I go into the “sunroom” to work on my puzzle. Well, I completed the puzzle, sadly noting that there were seven pieces missing. I was expecting that so I left it. My wife, Michele, kept trying to console me saying that surely Ravensburger, provide replacement pieces? No, as far as I know it is Educa, from Spain that provide that service.

So on Saturday evening (between the world soccer games), I start to reconstruct the other half, the part that I had built in 2008/2009? It had been carefully wrapped with newspaper to keep the pieces in place. As I tore the newspaper carefully away from the puzzle, I found some loose pieces. Suddenly I recognised the colouring of one, bright orange! Could it be relating to the other half of the puzzle? With tentative hope I placed it and it fitted. Excitedly I rushed to tell Michele, that I had found a missing piece. Only six missing now.

(puzzle building with Gothic overtones)

I continued but with absolutely no warning, utter dark. Pitch Black Everywhere. Yes, this is South Africa and with virtually no warning, a BLACKOUT. Eskom, the power state utility, was having labour problems. No money for increases and militant unions were attacking any "scab" workers and deliveries of coal to keep the power stations going and the country alight. The workers wanted the country to shut down if their wage demands were not met. This would have serious political ramifications for the ANC government. If any section of the country was to miss any soccer game, woe betide those responsible!!! To make things even more sensitive, the game was to be between Nigeria and Croatia. South Africans support any African team. Matters would be desperate if the game was not televised and now a BLACKOUT!! We looked out of the windows of our house and not a light was to be seen, only the odd vehicle passing. Every one was home to watch soccer.

A blackout would not deter me!! We grabbed lots of candles and paraffin lamps and plonked them all over the table tennis board. So the process of unwrapping continued and to my incredulous astonishment, I ended up finding every single piece, even a piece that I thought was missing on the first half of the puzzle which I completed so many years ago. In spite of cats, my carelessness, my clumsiness dropping pieces all over the place, moving tables and chairs and finding more pieces lying all over the place, I had ended up recovering every single piece. Now the puzzle was exactly 9120 pieces. It is hard for me to describe my feelings when I looked over the surface of the puzzle to see the rows and rows of neat orderly grooves of puzzle pieces.

I now had to join the two halves. Because the table tennis table had been half up right and half down, the edges were not evenly together. How to join the halves? Firstly I used hardboard and newspaper to even out the table as much as possible. I then had a brainwave, use your MRI and x-ray scans, at least they will be good for something. Duly the task was completed, I could not stop smiling. I got Michele to take lots of pictures.

(how many people do you know who are this stupid?)

(a happy head surveying the puzzle)

Then, not a word of a lie (as the expression goes), the lights came on! After I had completed the task in candle light. Michele and I looked at each other with a smile; the soccer game must be close to starting, and it was.

So my day before Father’s Day was truly a spectacular day; a car, a car radio, getting my AMC pot back re-polished to absolute perfection by the factory in Cape Town and a celebratory dinner at a new restaurant. Now a puzzle that I have dragged out over ten years and finding that I had not lost any pieces. Humbly I apologised to my three cats, Astro, Nancy-boy and Stormy-stormy. They were innocent of losing any of the puzzle pieces, although there is one piece that has a few cat toothmarks on.

Now I must face a new challenge.

How the hell do I mount this in a picture frame???